Client state

Arminius, The Barbarians and the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest

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• published: 21 Jan 2014
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This Show travels to Germany to learn more about Arminius, a German war chief that grew up with the Romans and studies their tactics. Arminius was able to use the Romans tactics against them in one of Rome's greatest defeats: the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (German: Schlacht im Teutoburger Wald, Hermannsschlacht or Varusschlacht), described as clades Variana (the Varian disaster) by Roman historians, took place in 9 CE, when an alliance of Germanic tribes led by Arminius of the Cherusci ambushed and decisively destroyed three Roman legions and their auxiliaries, led by Publius Quinctilius Varus. Despite several successful campaigns and raids by the Roman army in the years after the battle, they never again attempted to conquer Germania territory east of the Rhine River. From the time of the rediscovery of Roman sources in the 15th century, Teutoburg Forest has been seen as a pivotal clash, which ended Roman expansion into northern Europe. This notion became especially prevalent in the 19th century, where it formed an integral part of the mythology of German nationalism. More recently, some scholars have begun to question this interpretation and have pointed out reasons why the Rhine was a much more practical boundary for the Roman Empire than any other river in Germania. Logistically, armies on the Rhine could be supplied from the Mediterranean via the Rhone, Saône and Mosel, with a brief stretch of portage. Armies on the Elbe, on the other hand, would have to have been supplied either by extensive overland routes or ships travelling the hazardous Atlantic seas. Economically, the Rhine was already supporting towns and sizeable villages at the time of the Gallic conquest. Northern Germania was far less developed, possessed fewer villages, and had little food surplus and thus a far lesser capacity for tribute. Thus the Rhine was both significantly more accessible from Rome and better equipped to supply sizeable garrisons than the regions beyond, and there were also practical reasons to fall back from the limits of Augustus' expansionism in this region. After Arminius was defeated and dead, Rome tried to control Germania east of the Rhine and north of the Danube indirectly, by appointing client kings. Italicus, a nephew of Arminius, was appointed king of the Cherusci, and Vangio and Sido became vassal princes of the powerful Suebi.